


Long Division

by crazylittleelf



Category: Fringe
Genre: Community: lgbtfest, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-04
Updated: 2009-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:16:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazylittleelf/pseuds/crazylittleelf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It wasn't so much that he was lusting after another guy.  He was used to that.  That the guy in question was dead was causing him to question his sanity.  Her sanity.  He was pretty sure that said dead guy was the sanest of them all."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Division

**Author's Note:**

> Written for lbgtfest prompt: Peter is bi, and dealing with the fact he's sleeping with Olivia more for the John in her head, than for her. This assumes that the events of The Transformation never happened and that John is a permanent resident in Olivia's noggin.

She didn’t bother locking the little office now but those first few weeks were mistrustful times.  Relegated to Peter the Babysitter, he prowled the lab while Walter reacquainted himself with reality.  Bored and restless, he eyed the locked door with increasing lust because there were things he just couldn’t resist, habits he was unwilling to break.  He lacked, as was pointed out frequently, discipline and each round though the lab saw him drifting closer and closer to the battered door.

The lock was a shabby thing that hadn’t been rekeyed when they set up shop and opening it was the work of a few moments, barely registering as pleasure it was so easy.  He eased the door shut behind him, reveling as he did in the sense of displacement, the keen awareness of intrusion that quickened his pulse and heightened his senses.  He smiled to himself, enjoying his little conquest and pushed from his mind any unpleasant sexual metaphors that wanted to tag along.

The little office smelled of dust and old paper, formaldehyde and ever so faintly of her.  She’d claimed the battered old desk as her own but only to the barest degree.  He found pens and blank sticky notes and a box of granola bars that probably tasted like cardboard, pathetic in their lack of chocolate chips, and in the back of a bottom drawer a manilla folder brimming with pain where she mapped out her betrayal.  Notes in loopy cursive that seemed so at odds with her cold demeanor examined her time with John, not just professionally but deeply personally and she worked out exactly how he had slipped past her defenses.  The hellish exercise ended abruptly with a note in the same ink.  “I never meant to hurt you.”  It wasn’t her handwriting.

He thought at the time he probably should be concerned and possibly guilty but he stared at the sharp, angular printing and felt curiosity tickling the back of his mind, uncomfortable and unwanted so ignored as best he could.  It festered there as she warmed to him.  She offered him tiny glimpses of herself and who she had been before they had met, before John flayed her trust, subtle details he hoarded greedily.  It became an exercise in stealth to gather more, covering his tracks through the personnel database, files filched when Walter provided a convenient distraction, gentle questions from a concerned co-worker who was well on his way to friend status.  They both pretended not to notice the gradual shift in his interests from her to _him_.  He rationalized that it was good for her to talk about it, that he was doing her a favor, and he was good at lying to himself.

_He_ had been charming and bold, had read her easily.  Sparkling blue eyes and warm hands and gentle patience with her skittish tendencies.  Not Peter’s type at all, but he’s willing to acknowledge the possibility that he was lying to himself about that, too.  He was jealous at first, at the thought of her with someone else even though she wasn't with him, but that jealously bled into something else and he struggled to remind himself that John was dead for god’s sake, and a traitor on top of that, but his not-so-clever brain didn't really care.

###

The brine of the tank made her hair smell like the ocean and that was really what undid him.  He was sixteen again, months away from dropping out of school, enjoying a joint with Aidan, hidden in the dunes.  His skin was sticky with salt from swimming in the too-cold ocean and he was vaguely thinking that maybe there were a couple beers left in the car.  Aidan reached for the joint, over balanced and tumbled on top of Peter, laughing, blowing smoke in his face.  Lazy and languid, unwilling to move from the heat of skin against his, Peter looked up at a knowing smirk and the scent of salt and wet skin was forever imprinted in his mind as something unbearably sensual.

He fished with his foot to drag her robe closer, wrapped it around her shoulders, her panting the only sound in the empty lab.  Astrid and Walter refused further participation in this pantomime of science and Peter knew on a basic level that anything Walter walked away from was something he should walk away from but her couldn’t say no to her, followed her and her demon unquestioningly.  The John-in-her-head was becoming more of a fixture, relied upon the way she turned to him for shady contacts, his shady contacts for shady things, his father for shady science.  Tremors roiled through her body, her fist clenched rhythmically against his shirt.  She pressed her cold nose to the hollow of his throat and whimpered.  He nuzzled her hair and breathed the scent greedily.

He brushed his lips against her forehead and wondered how much of her was left.

“Olivia?”

She hesitated long enough that he was sure she was gone but then she shifted against him burrowing her face into his neck.  “Yeah.  I’m okay.”  Her voice was rough and certainly not okay but it was her and he felt a stab of disappointment, unexpected and chilling and the guilt made him shiver and draw her closer.

“Come on.  Up.  I’ll drive you home.”

It was as easy to talk his way into her bed as it had been to break into her office.  They were both tired and lonely and he didn't consider that he was acting out of habit again until he rolled her under him, sweaty and flushed and murmured into her ear until she clenched around him.  He never stayed the night and they never talked about it because they were both still shaky in their new roles, prone to bouts of terror that made fleeing seem like the only viable option.  When he gathered his clothing from the floor sometimes he would catch her eyes on him and see a wistfulness there, alien to her features, that vanished a moment later and they both looked away like nothing happened.  Being with her wasn't a hardship no matter what the reason for getting there.  She was lovely and witty and he enjoyed her company even though he sometimes looked up at her face, winded from laughing at some dumb joke over beers and was startled that it was her looking back.  Occasionally it wasn't her looking back and that startled him even more.

He was learning to sort the differences between the two of them, tiny changes in her mannerisms.  The memories were coming more often and they were both learning the subtle clues to John's presence in her mind.  If Peter seemed overly curious she didn't say anything.  If she seemed desperate to hang on to any part of her former lover she could get he didn't say anything either.  He supposed if they every talked about it they'd each have to admit they were using the other to get to someone else.  His mind shied away from the implications.  It wasn't so much that he was lusting after another guy.  He was used to that.  That the guy in question was dead was causing him to question his sanity.  Her sanity.  He was pretty sure that said dead guy was the sanest of them all.

###

He'd been getting the feeling for a while that she wasn't always her, and not always in the ways you might expect if you could ever expect such a thing as a dead guy being lodged in someone's mind.  He was walking with Walter a few steps behind her, tuning out the stream of consciousness the old man was directing his way, trying to enjoy the view but it was wrong.  Not wrong that he was watching, he wasn't overly concerned with what anyone thought about his staring at her ass, more to the point her ass was wrong somehow and he didn't figure out until hours later that it was like watching a guy.  He considered pointing out that John was running the show occasionally but didn't want to upset whatever was going on in her head and felt a sickly, giddy excitement at the prospect.  She seemed oblivious, but he had learned that she was nearly as good as hiding things as he was.  He imagined the two of them together in her mind and burned with jealousy.  He pretended nothing was wrong and she pretended that she was alone in her mind.

One night she was straddling him, riding him at a slow, teasing pace and he was fighting the urge to flip them over and fuck her senseless when she looked down and it wasn't her looking out from behind her eyes.  He froze and she tilted her head slightly, her mouth twitching up at one corner, a sly knowing smile that wasn't hers.  She leaned down until her lips were almost brushing his and whispered, "Know you want me, Bishop."

"John?"  His heart was hammering in his ribcage like it wanted out and John laughed with Olivia's mouth, then crushed her lips to his in a rough kiss.  They moved against each other and Peter's mind reeled with the difference, her lips, her hands, even her voice was different as his name passed her lips.  He was gone in moments and it wasn't her name he choked out as he came.

Later, when they were sprawled across the bed, they watched each other warily.  "Nice to know the two of you get along so well."  Her voice was low, hurt.

He shook his head, feeling lost.  "Olivia… I didn't know he could… do that.  Take over like that."

She huffed an annoyed breath out at him.  "You're a terrible liar.  Really, Peter, how did you survive as a con man?"

"Well, you didn't say anything either.  A little warning, 'Oh by the way, my dead boyfriend might be stopping by every now and then.'  That might have been nice."

"Like you minded."  She was glaring and her mouth quirked into a cold smile.

He was surprised at the blush that colored his face and rolled away from her to sit on the edge of the bed and it was shame and regret and things he was old friends with he just wasn't expecting them here, with her.  Panic tightened his chest and he was pushing himself to his feet then her hand on his back stilled him.  She stroked a soothing path down his spine, followed with her lips.  She shifted and leaned along his back resting her cheek against his shoulder blade.  The warmth of her grounded him.

"So how does this work?"  He pulled her hand from his waist and held it, rubbing his fingers over her knuckles.

"How the hell should I know?"  She peppered little kisses over his shoulder.  "We'll work something out."  Her voice dropped to a whisper.  "I like having him here."

"Well… he's… is he.  Can he hear us?"

She sighed a little and nodded her head.  Her hair tickled his back.  "Yeah.  He's always here now."

He lifted her hand to his mouth.  "It's not just memories?"  He bit one of her knuckles lightly.

"No.  Definitely not just memories."

"So… how does this work?" and she understood that he meant something completely different this time.

"I don't know.  I suck at relationships and I don't really think you're in this for me."  The bleakness of her voice caught him like a slap.  He turned and cradled her face between his hands.

"That's not… Olivia, that's not true, he's just…"  Peter trailed off, frowning.  His brain gave up looking for the words after a moment and he shook his head.

"Irresistible?  Yeah, I know."  She laughed a little and her eyes flickered away for a moment and she laughed again.  She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down, snuggled into him.  "He says it has to be all of us.  Equally.  You can't just use me to get to him."

"I wasn't…"  She made a face at him, rolled her eyes.  "Okay, I was," he corrected, "but that's not the only reason.  Why can't I want you both?"

She pressed her lips to his, murmured into his mouth.  "You can."


End file.
